Erika De Casier proves herself on "Still"

Graphic by Anya Perel-Arkin

By Bennett Himmel

On her new album Still, Erika de Casier continues her streak of retrofuturist R&B all while broadening the edges of her sound to build something new. Despite the near-total lack of releases (her only release was a brief appearance on the so-whatever Shygirl remix album), de Casier has been keeping herself busy and building her profile through: performing at festivals and even writing a K-Pop hit, NewJeans’ stellar “Super Shy,” which literally just sounds like an Erika de Casier song. On Still, de Casier stakes her claim as one of the most interesting voices in R&B today.

I first heard of Erika in 2021 around the release of her album Sensational, and it is exactly that: sensational. Erika evokes the early 2000s wonderfully on that record, with synthetic harpsichords and birdsong; whispery, sensual, vocals; and lush, intoxicating sub bass. De Casier also proved herself as a singular lyricist, and one that definitely will not please everyone. For me, it’s impossible not to fall for endearingly goofy lines like “Jumping on my bike / Helmet on tight.” Erika may be whispery, but she is an entirely captivating vocalist, weilding emotion like few other artists I’ve seen: Her restraint makes her sound strong; Feet planted firmly on the ground.

None of this would matter if Still wasn’t sublime. The record is immediately more sensual than her previous two records. While her music definitely slips into silk-sheet settings, her work is often a bit sad, introspective, and solitary. They were all, arguably, love songs, but they’re love songs to listen to alone. On the flipside, this album’s first real song is “Home Alone,” a powerful booty-call anthem. “Are you alone too?” de Casier purrs over cinematic, desirous strings that feel a bit less synthetic than anything off of Sensational. The song is dramatic, and turns a hookup into a matter of life-or-death. Erika knows this song is more sensual, too: ending with a loop of her saying “Sexy.”

The first act of the album exists in that steamy, sensual, in-between place– it’s music to listen to while getting ready for the hookup, not during. There are a couple outliers like the lead single, “Lucky,” which sounds as if it could’ve been one of her songs for NewJeans, but also shows a more mature side of Erika’s lyricism. It’s less goofy, but loses none of that playful charm. There’s also “The Princess,” a tale of a woman reckoning with her desire to be free and her desire for a more traditional life. This is also the first we hear of de Casier in her lower register. I don’t quite know where I stand on her lower register yet, but it shows that Erika wants to break the falsetto-based trappings of her earlier body of work. The record really hits its stride with “Ice,” which features Atlanta rap duo They Hate Change, who deliver servicable-if-cliche verses. The real standout here is the song’s absolutely mountain-sized earworm of a chorus. “Ice” song came out a couple weeks before the album, and was stuck in my head at some point nearly every day. 

The tension of the record snaps with arguably the best song, “Ooh.” The song evokes Aaliyah’s work with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, and it’s the most humid track we’ve ever heard from de Casier. “You make me wanna go furrrrther, / I swear I saw lightning in your eyes,” Erika half-groans-half-raps on the song’s immaculate pre chorus, before she invokes the opener “Drama” off of her last album, tacking on a giggly, ad-libbed “It was sensational.” G-funk synths swirl around as her voice is jerked and manipulated at will for an explosive chorus. It’s one of the most rewarding moments of the album, welcoming new listeners into her world with a banger and giving a knowing wink to fans who have been there from the start.

After “Ooh,” the record begins to cool down and resemble her earlier work. There’s the downtrodden, introspective “Anxious,” which showcases how earth-shattering Erika’s plainspoken lyricism can be: when she sings “I kinda still think you are not that bad,” you feel how ashamed of herself she is for pining after some jerk. There’s also “Ex-Girlfriend,” which features UK-rapper-turned-songstress Shygirl, and aims to be a more chilled out, hushed “Beautiful Liar.” The results are mixed: the chorus is strong and catchy, but Shygirl’s verse is incredibly weak. I would’ve loved to hear a grimy Shygirl rap verse on an Erika de Casier song, but her lyrics are sung with very little gusto and feel phoned-in. It’s a shame. I normally adore Shygirl, but she is undeniably responsible for bringing the song down. 

The record has one final jaw-dropping moment: “My Day Off.” A tense, sauntering self-preservation anthem. The album is similarly sequenced to the obvious highlight “Busy,” off of Sensational, but it almost feels like the track’s antithesis. The song has Erika exhausted with shot-patience and a silenced phone. “Step off of my lawn,” she sighs, and she sounds full of a quiet rage. It also contains what feels like the most Erika de Casier moment I’ve ever heard, where she breaks the meter of the song to say that she needs “to do laundry because it doesn’t do itself,” which is nothing if not real as fuck.

Still does not feel as revolutionary to me as Sensational does. Partly because of the similarity between the two albums. There are many moments on Still that could have easily been slotted in on Sensational. Erika is an artist with a distinct sound, and she does not tend to venture outside of it often. She’s most comfortable making songs that evoke the early 2000s, and this album really feels like it could have come out around the same time as Aaliyah’s self-titled record or Brandy’s Full Moon. There is the fact that Erika’s music is uniformly at least very good. I would love to hear a bit more sonic evolution, but there is a part of me that would be okay if she just kept making this kind of music forever. On the gentle closer, Erika laments that “Right now, I’m just trying to be someone.” It feels like an honest moment in which she admits her biggest flaw as an artist: her uncanny resemblance to the feathery R&B goddesses who came before her. If de Casier finds just one thing to differentiate herself a bit more from those artists, she’d be absolutely unstoppable. And with the undeniable, if derivative excellence that this album offers, you could argue that she already is.